Controversial South African politician and traditional minister of the Zulu ethnic group Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi has died at the a🌱ge of 95, South African president Cyril Ramaphosa announced on Saturday.
Buthelezi founded the Inkatha Freedom Party, the third largest political party in South 🔯Africa when the country🀅 transitioned from the racist apartheid system to a democratic one in 1994.
He was admitted to hospital in July following a failed mꦛedical procedure to ease his back pain, his family said at♍ the time.
“Prince Buthelezi, who served as the democratic South Africa's first Minister of Home Affairs, passed away in the early hours of today, Saturday, 9 September 2023, just two weeks after the celebration of his 95th birthdaဣy,” Ramaphosa said in a statement on Saturday.
According to Ramaphosa, ar🍸rangements for his mourning and funeral will be announced after consultations with the Zulu royal family.
“Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi has been an outstanding leader🐼 in the political and cultural life of our nation🍰, including the ebbs and flows of our liberation struggle, the transition which secured our freedom in 1994 and our democratic dispensation,” said Ramaphosa.
Buthelezi was part of the late Nelson Mandela's first cabinet when 𝄹the latter became South Africa's first democratically elected pr♒esident in 1994.
Mandela appointed him as a minister of home affairs, a position he continued to hold in the second ad﷽ministr⭕ation of former president Thabo Mbeki.
His legacy has remained a contested one due to the role he played during South Africa's apartheid era, including heading the administꦦrative region of Zululand, a part of the “homelands” regions that were the cornerstone of the apartheid government's policy of separate development.
His party was also blamed for the pre-election violence that engulfed the country and the pro𓂃vince of Kwa-Zulu Natal before the country's historic 1994 elections.
Now known as KwaZulu-Natal province, the region was one of the 10 “homelands” created by the white-minority government meant to group Black South Africans according to their ethnicity in the cou💞ntry's mostly rural areas.
These were meant to keep the apa♋rth⛄eid system intact by installing so-called “puppet leaders” leading to Buthelezi being labelled a sell-out by liberation movements like the ruling African National Congress at the time.
A former member of the 🎃ANC Youth League, in 1975 he formed what was later to be known as the Inkatha Freedom Party, an outfit founded on an ideology of Zulu nationalism which he initially aligned to the African National Congress but later got involved in violent clashes with ANC supporters in the 1980s and early 1990s.
The violence that erupted between Inkatha and the ANC in the 1980s and early 1990s remains one of the bloodiest in South A𒀰frican history and a dent in Buthelezi's political career. Many were killed in the clashes which took place in the then Zululand and later spread to areas ♊including the Transvaal, now the Gauteng province.
Th𝓡ese culminated in what got to be known as the Shell House Massacre in 1994.
Nineteen IFP supporters were shot and k𒅌illed by ANC security guards after nearly 20,000 of them marched to Shell House in Johannesburg, which was then the headquarters of the ANC, banned in 1990.
They were opposing the upcoming elections and accused ꦫthe ANC of undermining Zulu leaders and chiefs.
In the 𒀰early 1990s, leaders of the apartheid government admitted to funding ꧒the Inkatha Freedom Party as they sought to destabilize the struggle against apartheid and what was increasingly looking like a road to the end of white minority rule.
Buthelezi opposed apartheid but his stance on controversial issues regarding the opp𒅌ressive system put him at odds with ANC leaders.
This included his opposition to international sanctions against apartheid and his support for free markets at a time when most liberation movements were largely socialist and African naꦅtionalists.
His le🔥adership of the Zululand administration was considered a betrayal to Black South Africans as the “homelands” system was an integral part of the apar📖theid machinery.
With the growth and significance of his IFP party, Buthelezi wanted his party to play a bigger role during the negotiations for a peaceful transition to democracy, but he withdrew from the negotiations and threatened to boycott the historic🥂 1994 elections after his proposals, including the autonomy of the Zululand region, were rejected.
However, he agreed to parti𒉰cipate in the elections about a week before they were held, 🃏winning 10% of the national vote and forming part of Mandela's coalition government which also included the National Party.
He remained a lawmaker 🌠in South Africa's Parliament from 1994 until his death and the leader ofജ the Inkatha Freedom Party until he was replaced at its national conference in 2019.
Throughout his political career, Buthelezi remained deeply involvꦇed in the affairs of the Zulu nation, serving as a traditional prime minister and advisor to the late King Goodwill Zwelithini and his successor, his son King Misuzulu KaZwelithini.
In 2022, he oversaw the installation of Misuzulu as the n🃏ew king of the Zulu nation amid fierce, internal disputes within the Zulu ro💙yal family about who was the rightful heir to the throne.
During his last days, it had become apparent that the two had fallen out, with a sickly But♛helezi questioning the new king.
Buthelezi turned 95 last month.
